The strength of this book lies in its sensitive and poignant portraits of hikikomori, Japan's recluses. Their stories of withdrawal are etched with pain and anomie. Michael Zielenziger gives a voice to these unfortunate "isolates" and sympathetically examines their malaise.
Alas, "Shutting out the Sun" leaves readers in the dark about Japan and its future. Not far into this deeply flawed and monochromatic portrayal of contemporary Japan, we read that Japan, "lacks the same values, norms, and modes of thinking most inhabitants of advanced and prosperous nations today associate with modernity."
And that, in the post-World War II era, Japan "systematically stifled change and resisted innovation." Zielenziger's Japan is thus fundamentally backward, rigid and inexorably stagnant, driving its people to despair and dooming them to unfulfilling lives. The troubled hikikomori are a metaphor for a dysfunctional society and a cudgel to flail at it.